31 December 2009

New year ends with blue moon. I'm sure a lot of people will take it as some huge cosmic event, but since time is arbitrary (and far from universal ... ask any Chinese or Jewish people you know when the new year is), I simply see it as another chance to stare at the full face of the moon.

29 December 2009

There was some action (of the paperwork kind) on the phone for the new place today, so mayhap we'll have phonage and internetage soon at home. I hope so, because in another four days we'll have to move this computer over to the house, as it'll be January and we'll officially be outta this apartment.

We can (and will) go to an internet cafe (is like 40 cents for a half hour), but that will entail going somewhere, and using unusual (i.e., Spanish language layout) keyboards, and I don't know what all, so that Consecutive Days count might just get reset once or twice again before I get settled back into my regular rhythm and resume posting the heartpounding and poignant and ... well, possibly boring at times posting that you have come to expect from me.

Plus, I'll get back to reading y'all regularly and keeping up with what's going on in the world.

28 December 2009

So, I have had a backup post lined up and ready to post if I should fail to (or simply choose not to) come over here where to the land of internet connections (aka, The Old Place). I've been bumping the date by one each day that I did post, to cover the next.

Well, yesterday I was feeling a bit poorly in the tum-tum, and decided to let the pre-scheduled post have the day.

26 December 2009

I'm over at Jen's old apartment, where we'll have a computer for a couple more days, to post, and there are people settling in in the old downstairs place. I'm not sure I like it, my first Costa Rican place taken over by strangers.... ;)

...and I can't think of a single other thing to say, except, I've gotta go to the supermarket and pick up a couple of things -- like some whole bean coffee so I can make use of the coffee grinder the girls gave me for Christmas!!!

Oh!

Before we moved, I downloaded a game (the "next" version of one of my faves) and it turns out it's the Italian version. Anybody wanna come down here and translate?

21 December 2009

Finished reading the 58 emails in my inbox (wow, teach me to be offline for two days!) and thought I'd say Hi! here.

We're getting settled in to the new house, and Jen tells me that there is ppotential movement already on getting connected over there. To the InterWebs Tubes, I mean. She and I are already connected :)

17 December 2009

As I've mentioned, I'm teaching some Saturday classes now, over in the town of Belén (that's Bethlehem to those who don't comprende español), and I took a couple pictures out the window last Saturday:

Also, tonight the institute had a "training session" for several new teachers, and I was surprised to be asked a lot of questions about procedures and how "we" should do things. I didn't realize it, but I have the most seniority (yeah, six months).

And we also had Tamales: The Costa Rican Version. They were different from the Mexican tamales I grew up eating, but were pretty dang good.

16 December 2009

15 December 2009

The (state run, i.e. socialized) phone company is doing a massive redo of the lines in this neighborhood -- just in time for us to be moving out, but it's a good thing overall -- and somehow it trickled over to the cable lines with the result that we were GASP!!! without internet pretty much all day.

11 December 2009

10 December 2009

Would you believe that Jen had not seen Miracle on 34th Street? Well, that cultural touchstone has now been ... touched, Fred Gailey proved once again that Kris is the one and only Santa, and li'l Susan got her dream house.

I think she liked it, and I know I did (having seen it many, many times).

07 December 2009

We just watched the latest Doctor Who episode, "The Waters of Mars", and, as I said to Jen about halfway through the show, it was a different kind of episode. I won't give any spoilers, but if you've seen it and want to talk about it, you can find a link to my email address over on the right --->

In other developments, we drove around a bit this afternoon, mostly because I wanted to take a photo from a certain spot, but also to see if we could spy any "For Rent" signs that would lead us to TOTH. We didn't find any such thing, nor was I able to get the photo I wanted. I did get this, though:

Mayhap we'll try again on both counts (well, we'll definitely be trying more on TOTH).

04 December 2009

I picked up a new class tonight. A Level 1 (beginners -- like really beginners) class. After a nice, hearty blank stare all around, I started searching for a way through the language wall, and, luckily (and somewhat surprisingly), there is a book for the class.

So we started at the beginning: The letters of the alphabet, numbers, days of the week, months, and all that. And by the end of class, I think I had learned as much Spanish as they learned Inglés.

03 December 2009

So, you've probably heard about this -- the Salvation Army in Houston is requiring proof of citizenship before giving children Christmas presents. Epic FAIL on the whole "Christ-like" thing, there, SA.

02 December 2009

01 December 2009

As Jen has already mentioned, we're beginning the process of moving from having separate (but contiguous) apartments to The One True House (TOTH). When I came here to Costa Rica back in March, I had two suitcases and a carry on bag and this apartment was pretty empty (basically a couch and a mattress on the floor in one bedroom). Since then, though, I've built a couple of tables and... well, you know how it goes. One acquires things.

So, over the next month we'll hopefully be finding said TOTH, but if not, moving all the stuff from upstairs to down here. And while Jen laughed at my idea of bunk couches, I'm not really sure we can use the third dimension of the interior space that well.